The report considers only those incidents motivated by international terrorist groups — so instances of domestic terrorism are not counted. Moreover, individuals captured overseas, extradited and brought to the United States to face trial are included in the same category as people who emigrated to the United States and were charged with terrorism offenses years later.

For example, Ahmed Abu Khattala, convicted in November in connection with the deadly 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, is counted in the same category as someone who successfully applied for a visa to enter the United States.

“Doing that intentionally confuses the threat of domestic terrorist attack with the number of foreigners, by increasing the number of foreigners,” Greenberg said. Extradited terrorism suspects are not immigrants, she said, and should be taken out of the sample.

What next, yellow stars on the jackets of immigrants? It’s happening again.

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In a hilarious take on the Obama birthers, there is a new conspiracy in town: “Trump Girthers.”

But he did say that Mr. Trump’s weight is 239 pounds and that he is too sedentary. His cholesterol is too high, despite medicine to lower it, and Dr. Jackson said Mr. Trump would be increasing the 10-milligram dosage of Crestor to better control it.

At 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. Trump has a body mass index of 29.9, which is just shy of officially being obese. A New York driver’s license issued in 2012 listed him as 6 feet 2 inches tall, which would put him just into the obese category.

More than just a piece of delicious karma or even, as some are claiming, “fat shaming,” what we have here is lie shaming. A 70-year-old man is not going to grow an inch in six years unless, of course, that inch is the difference between being medically obese and just “overweight.” The internet has had a lot of fun with this; “Guardians Of The Galaxy” Director James Gunn offered to donate $100,000 to Trump’s favorite charity if he would “get on an accurate scale” (a take on Trump’s own $5 million birther promise. By the way, whatever happened with that?). Gunn later quipped,

I would be afraid that it’s the Ku Klux Klan but there’s no way in hell he’s 239 pounds, so I don’t have to worry about it.

And the internet has been quick to post photos of Trump next to other 6’3″ people, or even the 6’1″ President Obama:

Tempting though it may be to laugh at this nonsense, it actually illustrates a far more nefarious tendency in this administration: a need to lie on behalf of a president who has so obviously made lying a job requirement. And make no mistake: history is filled with examples of how dangerous this can be in the hands of one with tremendous power.

From day one we’ve had Trump and those associated with him saying demonstrably, stupidly false things purely to fluff the Trump ego. It literally started on Day One with Sean Spicer lying, repeatedly, about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd, then lying to cover up his lie. These are silly, unimportant things to lie about and also easily verified, yet someone who works for the president of the United States has been forced to trash his own credibility in a humiliating way so that Trump can continue to live in an alternate universe where he is respected and adored.

We have politicians in Trump’s own party trying to curry favor by sending jars of candy, his favorite flavors hand-selected by an aide who, I dunno, probably had more important stuff he or she could have been doing that day besides separating out the red and pink Starbursts (we pay these peoples’ salaries, don’t forget). It has now become cliche to say, “imagine the reaction if Obama had done this…” but seriously, imagine if a Democratic Senator had given Obama jars of M&Ms with the brown ones removed. Heck, they lost their shit when he spoke to crowds of thousands (raise your hand if you saw one of these bumper stickers after the 2008 election; I sure did).

This is how dictators and authoritarian leaders of Banana Republics behave, not leaders of free democracies. Toadies and sycophants debasing themselves so Dear Leader’s fantasy of being adored is not something we Americans have experienced before and it undermines America’s institutions. We saw it yesterday with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s amnesia on the “shithole” controversy.

If you’re going to publicly humiliate yourself and undermine your credibility on things like whether the president is obese or had the largest crowd size in the history of crowds, ever, period … I mean, where does it stop? He’s already lied about illegal votes, who’s to say he won’t do it again?

Be careful about writing this stuff off as silly internet fun and games. It’s not. It’s democracy’s cry for help.

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11 responses to “Girtherism: America’s Cry For Help”

I want to know if they gave him a drug test because he sure seems like a user to me.

The idea that you can treat the presidency and the president as if it was just some average American taking just another job is absurd. When the president can accidentally get us into war, provoke enmity against the American People by his stupid racist statements, can get us all killed in a nuclear war, it’s got to be treated, not as a job, but as a position of privilege which they have asked for. The law should make it clear that presidents don’t get to keep their health, their drug use, their personal finances in the same confidence that a private citizen does because it’s too dangerous to treat the office that way. If the chain store my niece got an after-school job in can demand that she take a drug test, The People have a right to know if the people who want to be president to do the same and the results made public. The same thing with a wide range of otherwise personal information.

I didn’t know who Dr. Ronny was before this but I can tell you that I don’t believe what he says now. Everyone’s reputation turns to ruin after they associate themselves with Trump.

As I have said for a number of years; lying to me is a far more egregious offense than swearing or calling people out for being liars, bigots, etc.,.

When Hitler and Stalin came to power they were both taking over nations with large numbers of citizens who were destitute as a result of wars, the Great Influenza of 1918, the Russian Revolution and other calmities and crises. Pretty much the same thing in most places that have coups, revolutions and start wars with their neighbors. All of them had or have the need to create an enemy to get the peoples’ minds engaged on something that they can blame on furriners or an out group.

Nothing these people do is intentionally funny although a fair amount of it is intentionally harmful.

Changing course a little bit. I think it’s disgusting all of this hysteria being generated about so-called chain immigration.

WTF is wrong with people bringing over more of their families? These are Americans with jobs and homes. I think it’s beautiful. Remember, even Filipinos aren’t automatically American citizens unless they happen to have served in the Navy. I knew a wonderful lady who came to the U.S. Then she helped all of her younger siblings become U.S. citizens. Some of the family remains in the Philippines. The Abuelita just couldn’t leave her island.

Where I live, people from Mexico and Guatemala have promoted their families. When a new person becomes a citizen it is cause for great celebration. They have to pass a civics test that would most likely fail the average American. Usually that person has already been working with a green card. We also have a large and successful population of Iraqi Chaldeans who contribute to our city. You can believe that they try to help their families make it to the U.S. We also have a substantial Muslim population that has immigrated in recent history. Now the French immigrants are always getting into trouble. Just kidding.

Trump and his supporters are fools to advocate tearing apart families.

Whites and Latinos make up about equal portions of the population of California. Of course that has more to do with reproduction than immigration. Do you think it bothers me? I love it! I get to practice my Spanish. I get to have fun with Spanglish. For the most part, these are people that you can trust. Last year I gave a ten-year old kid a nice reconditioned mountain bike that he should be able to ride until he is at least fifteen years old.

Oh, and…

Trump will never ever win the support of African-Americans. Why should he even try? He already threw in with the Klan. He gave us three minutes of Kumbayah for MLK Day. Shallow, empty praise. Remember back when we didn’t even know how bad he was? David Duke, the Klan and prominent right-wing hate groups were falling all over themselves to celebrate the Trump candidacy. Republican leaders and others waited for Trump to disavow this poison support.

Not one peep from the Trump people.

Most Wipipo aren’t that crazy about Trump either. The black community just happens to care enough to vote. According to Pew Research, fully two out of three eligible black voters turned out to vote for Obama. But they still turned out at something like 60% to vote for Hillary.

That’s actually pretty funny in the sad way that these things are funny nowadays. Peace. I hope we are both alive and well to witness the fall of the monster in just over two and one half years from now.

Let’s be practical, mix up six ounces of tequila, six ounces of triple sec and four ounces of Rose’s. Refrigerate. Drink in chilled martini glasses rimmed with salt between singing choruses of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

That was my plan for Hillary’s victory in 2016. I did it in 2008 and 2012.

Always promise to never give up hope, no matter what the odds. Oddly enough, when I first came up with that pledge, Bill Clinton was still president.

For decades, it’s been a cottage industry in the Filippines to get some young female member of the clan married off to an American and get her pregnant ASAP, so she can give birth in the USA to an American’s child and then get all her family over. After the whole family makes it over and she had her citizenship, then she divorces the American.

Well…I went to my appointment with a VA psychiatrist (I have one every three or four months because the VA HATES Adderall worse than smack) and a while back she asked me if I was “OK” and I said, “No, not really. I feel like crap most of the time because of chronic pain and I don’t sleep worth a damn so I’m really cranky.”.

She then asked if I was thinking about hurting myself. I told her that my body was giving me all of the pain that I require. I went on to add that if I was suicidal I would have killed myself a long time ago but, with my great sense of humor and my bubbling cheerfulness that was exceedingly unlikely.

She’s muslim, btw, and seems very nice woman. She is dressed in the manner of the enemy of JEEZUMurKKKA but in her eyes I detect warmth and compassion and she has helped me out with other issues in the past so I trust her (at least as much as I trust any other bi-pedal mammal).